Friday, July 08, 2005

Victor Davis Hanson: "Anticipate Western leaders condemning the terrorists in the same breadth as they call for “eliminating poverty” and “bringing them to justice” — as if the jihadists and their patrons are mere wayward and impoverished felons.

Wretchard: "The inevitable question then is 'why could Bin Laden not find the means to attack 30 trains?' The answer it seems to me, must be Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and hundred other places where he is engaged without quarter by US forces. Resources, whether Jihadi or no are not infinite. They do not have some magical machine that allows them to be everywhere at once, to sustain losses yet grow. There's no free lunch, not even, and especially not for Bin Laden. If it were true that Islamism would shrivel faster were it pursued more passively, then pre-911 policy should have finished it by now. But what we empirically observe is that ignoring them allowed them to mount 911-scale attack. Hit them continuously and in four years they could scrape together enough to blow up a London bus and some subway trains."

Steyn: "Yesterday, al-Qa'eda hit three Tube trains and one bus. Had they broadened their attentions from the central zone, had they attempted to blow up 30 trains from Uxbridge to Upminster, who can doubt that they too would have been successful? In other words, the scale of the carnage was constrained only by the murderers' ambition and their manpower."

and:

"Of course, many resources had been redeployed to Scotland to cope with Bob Geldof's pathetic call for a million anti-globalist ninnies to descend on the G8 summit. In theory, the anti-glob mob should be furious with al-Qa'eda and its political tin ear for ensuring that their own pitiful narcissist protests - the pâpier-maché Bush and Blair puppets, the ethnic drumming, etc - will be crowded off the news bulletins."

Arab view: 'Enough, enough' "Arabs and Muslims in Britain and across the world expressed outrage at the terrorist attacks in London, with the dominant viewpoint summed up by one person who wrote on a Web site, "Enough ... enough.""

Good. The War on Terror is showing more dividends. Some people wising up.

Incongruent note: "The September 11, 2001 al Qaeda attacks in the United States sparked some anger at Arabs and Muslims, which U.S. leaders and others worked to quickly counteract."

I recall a great deal of hyperbole about a backlash that didn't happen, 'US leaders' or not.

"Livingstone was in charge of London's transportation policy once before, in the early '80s, when his socialist "Fare's Fair" policy slashed prices on public transport and plunged the industry into financial troubles (which helped lead to the abolition of the Greater London Council of which he was head). "----------

" The UN refugee agency has completed registering Afghans who wish to repatriate because of the closure of refugee camps in troubled North Waziristan, with at least 85 percent of the camp population choosing to return to Afghanistan rather than relocate elsewhere in Pakistan."

Afghanistan...... That wouldn't happen to be another sign of American success?---------

"Environmentalists are cheering on Prime Minister Paul Martin as he appeals for U.S. support in fighting climate change, saying Canada can't meet its Kyoto targets unless the United States is onside. "

"Martin said earlier this week he will speak "forcefully" to George W. Bush at the G8 summit to convince him of the scientific evidence that the world is getting warmer and that manmade sources are the cause. "

"Canada's greenhouse emissions are now 24 per cent above 1990 levels, a far cry from the six per cent reduction from 1990 levels called for under the Kyoto treaty."

Okay. Let me get this straight. The Canadian PM, whose country is not anywhere near compliance with Kyoto, is going to make demands on the US take action so that Canada can meet its goals. Would Martin like anything else? A rubdown and a shiatsu? Make his mortgage payments for him? Buyout the Canadian national debt?

Here is an idea. Canada signed the Kyoto Treaty, incidentally making a great deal of noise about how morally superior this made them. Canada, naturally, can meet their own obligations.---------

"A man arrested when police showed up to break up a New Year's Eve party at a friend's house has filed a lawsuit, arguing he had a constitutional right to get drunk on private property as long as he didn't cause a public disturbance. "

A man on private property, not disturbing anyone, not operating any equipment, not breaking any actual laws, is arrested... for being drunk.

"Legal experts said his lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Boston, is the first to challenge a state law allowing police to lock up drunk people against their will for their own protection."

"Laverriere argues that the Massachusetts Protective Custody Law was written to combat public drunkenness and that the police had no right to use it to take him from a private residence. He also says he had planned to spend the night at his friend's and wasn't going to be driving anywhere."

"One thing people should be able to do is drink in their own house," Laverriere told The Boston Globe. "That's the beauty of the land of the free."

Hell, even a despotic regimes lets people get hammered.

"Attorney Leonard Kesten, who has defended police departments in civil-rights cases, said if officers are investigating a crime or responding to an incident and discover that someone is drunk and posing a danger, they are obligated to take that person into protective custody."

"Police have been sued for failing to take people into protective custody who later died from alcohol poisoning or killed others in drunken-driving accidents."

"The ultimate determinate in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas - a trial of spiritual resolve; the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideas to which we are dedicated" -- Ronald Reagan

Thursday, July 07, 2005

"The Green Tree boy helped a state lawmaker craft a proposal that would make it illegal for dogs and other pets to stick their heads out the car window, which McCann says is a danger to animals and a distraction to drivers. "

Thanks kid. Go away.

This kid is 11 years old. Does anyone really believe that he is acting on his own? In my opinion it is contemptible to use a child like this as a front for an agenda.

How many laws do we need to govern us? Worse, how many laws do we need to protect us from ourselves? My answer is, none.

My dog loves to ride with his head out the window. Is he at slightly greater risk? Of course he is. Life is involves risk.----------

"President Bush yesterday stood fast in his rejection of the Kyoto climate treaty,...."

Its contemptible how some people - ahem - pretend that Bush is somehow the obstacle to the ratification of the Kyoto Treaty. Kyoto is dead. First of all the Senate recognized that its an economic treaty and rejected it 98-0 long before Bush came into office. Second, European nations are not and will never in compliance. Third, nothing is required of nations like China which is a major polluter.

Clinton spitefully pulled Kyoto out of the waste bin and left it on the President's desk before he left office. If I might wax metaphoric, Bush walked into the Oval Office, smelled Kyoto's corpse mouldering on his desk and had it decently buried.

I recall in the 80s as a kid reading predictions that carbon dioxide would be demonized as a pollution emission since real toxic pollutants were under control. At the time I dismissed the idea as stupid. Everyone knew CO2 is plant food, right? Now I know better. One cannot underestimate the willingness of self serving interests to cynically deceive and the willing gullibility of some segments of the population.

No amount of nagging is going to change America's position on Kyoto. Even after Bush is out of office, even if Kerry had won office in 2004, Kyoto will be and would never have been ratified.

In this case I DON'T believe that intentions of the pro-Kyoto advocates are good.

"Benjamin Franklin had it right when he wrote, "[T]he best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." Government dependency makes poverty."----------

"Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi underlined his maverick reputation Monday by telling African leaders their people's woes would be solved by creating a borderless continent with a single passport."

maverick is a word for it. Not the word I would have chosen

"Asking for foreign aid would lead to humiliating failure, he said."

Can't argue with that, especially since it has been the historical pattern.

""Fifty percent of gold in the world is in Africa, 95 percent of diamonds are in Africa and 95 percent of platinum is found in Africa ... It's a very rich continent, but it is not exploited (by Africans)," he said. "

Resources are good. However the modern post-industrial economy is less dependent on resources. In any given product the value materials is a fraction. Few raw resources are critical, and substitutes are readily available for most applications. Once, coal and iron were fought over as strategic resources, Peru and Spain even fought a war over bird crap. Today only petroleum is a true strategic resource, and even its importance is overstated. Now, minerals and other resources are cheaper than ever, technology allows us to access them more readily and manufacture cheaper or better alternatives.

The point of all this is that many third world nations are put out that their valuable resources don't make them rich. People are what really makes a nation prosperous. Human capital, if you will, as measured by the productivity, education, and skills. Free economies both generate human capital and allow economies based on it to flourish. These third world tyrannies, saddled with corrupt, nepotistic, heavy handed governments will never truly prosper, no matter how much platinum or diamonds or molybdenum they have within their borders.

"There are lessons here. When the United States has stayed on after fighting dictatorial enemies admittedly for decades in Italy, Germany, Japan, Korea and the Balkans progress toward democracy and prosperity ensued. Disengagement from unresolved messy problems whether from Europe after World War I, Vietnam in 1973, Beirut after the Marine barracks bombings, Afghanistan after the Soviet defeat, or Iraq in 1991 only left murderous chaos or the "peace" of dictators."

The reason the commies won in Vietnam is because of our failure of will. The USSR and supplied the North and we didn't supply the South. The North Vietnamese Army, replete with materiel they didn't have to manufacture themselves and tank crews literally chained into their tanks, invaded. America's shame is letting down our ally, eternally besmirching our honor.

In the aftermath, more people died in the following three years of communist "peace" than died in 14 years of American war.

"Some detainees have been held at the camp in Cuba for more than three years without being charged. The U.S. government contends the prisoners are enemy combatants and are not entitled to constitutional protections."

That is correct. Nor are they entitled to Geneva Convention protections.

"The Bush administration "has claimed the power to kidnap men anywhere in the world and hold them, interrogate them, detain them without any process of law," said Meeropol, the granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 after being convicted of conspiring to commit espionage for the Soviet Union."

What a bizarre world. Not that she is guilty of the crimes of her grandparents, I just wonder why she is quoted. Is she the head of some organization?

"An Old Bailey judge told the boy who cannot be named and was aged 15 when he attacked the 28-year-old teacher at Westminster City School, London, last year that he had subjected his victim to a prolonged, persistent, determined and violent rape. "

"But Judge Christopher Moss, QC, added: Life does not mean life. The purpose of such a sentence is not to throw away the key but to ensure you are not released until the relevant authorities can be satisfied you no longer pose a risk to female members of the community. The judge recommended a minimum tariff of nine years but said that, because he had already been in custody for ten months, the boy could be considered for parole in three years and eight months. "

"Two psychiatrists who examined the teenager concluded that he urgently needed treatment as a sex offender and that it was impossible to say when it would be safe to release him."

"But an even greater scandal at the UN is receiving less publicity: For years, its agencies and programs systematically have been promoting regulations and policies that block the use of safe, effective new technologies that could help solve some of the world's most pressing public health and environmental problems."

**** Repost from my blog Several stories, such as the UN Oil for Food scandal and Sex scandals in Africa have developed since.

In principle, I am not opposed to international diplomatic organizations, clearly however, the UN is inept, corrupt and unaccountable. Tom Deweese:

"The United Nations has come under the control of outlaw nations, petty and tarnished former superpowers and self-ordained special interest groups. Each promotes a socialist agenda that seeks to redistribute the wealth of producers into their coffers as they diminish the power of the United States and enslave the citizens of every nation in a new Dark Age of poverty and misery"

"In Kosovo, during decades of Serbian domination, the Albanians had established an extraordinary "parallel" school system, in which teachers were paid in clothing, food, transportation, and other goods and services. Kosovo had 28,000 education workers, serving 400,000 students in more than 800 institutions. Children were transported to and from their classes, hot lunches were dispensed, medical personnel were available, and school premises kept clean--all by parents and other volunteers. The teachers, who represented the civic conscience of the Kosovars, looked forward to U.N. expenditures to regularize their schools. They were out of luck. The first action of the international administration in Kosovo was to announce that education must start over from zero."

"Since the U.N. had no money for education, the teachers would be paid in scrip, exchangeable for relief supplies. But first, all janitors, cooks, and nurses were fired. No more milk or hot food would be served; school bus service was shut down. It is no wonder, then, that the streets of Prishtina soon filled with children spending their days out of school, selling cigarettes. Nor was it surprising that in 2002 the first group of public employees to strike against the foreign rulers were schoolteachers.""

Schwartz describes UN employees: "They call themselves "internationals," and are generally young and inexperienced, although the heads of their missions tend to be old and uninterested. They have a strong prejudice against privatization, and too many of those chosen for economic responsibilities hail from Sweden and other countries where statist socialism remains the political religion. "

Lets not forget the UN Oil for Food Scandal. The UN signed off on Saddam's diversion of oil profits from food and medicine for the people of Iraq to the construction of palaces for himself and embargoed weapons. UN officials accepted bribes and Kofi Annan himself signed off on Saddam's spending. Corruption exists at the highest levels of the UN.

And corruption exists at the bottom. The charactor of both higher and lower level UN employees was demonstrated when the cafeteria was looted during a strike of the food service employees. UN higher ups actually encouraged the employees to loot the cafeteria.

Consider, many UN employees were born and raised in third world tyrannies. They left these nations to join the UN to escape their failed countries. How is Kofi Annan, exactly, qualified to lecture the US about how to run our affairs?

This is an organization that incessently tries to impose UN taxes, impugns our soveriegnty, and protects tyrants like Saddam. The Kyoto treaty is a fraud and a bad idea. Unesco is a crime. Its demonstrated ineptitude in Iraq and Kosovo and lets not forget the endless disasters in Africa.

"Terrorists are gaining an astonishing legal edge over US and other armed forces deployed against them. The present trend promises to burden future generations, as well as our own, with an ad hoc, damaging legal framework sure to thwart counterterrorist operations and even furnish inducements for those tempted to join the terrorist ranks. "----------

"Not only does Eminent Domain now pose a threat to anyone whose property happens to catch the eye of a well connected property developer, the USA also has outrageous 'asset forfeiture' laws that allow suspects to have their property taken by the state, reversing the burden of proof and making the accused (but un-convicted and usually un-tried) person prove their property is not the proceeds of some crime in order to have the property returned (they cannot prevent it from being taken in the first place). So much for 'due process'."

"So how does the United States navigate nimbly between its weariness with the thankless role of a superpower and the dangers of a nostalgic isolationism? We need to find a sort of Zen-like philosophical balance that brings both some maturity to our pampered critics and psychic relief to ourselves, without endangering our own security or abandoning our true allies — while in the middle of a war and a polarized electorate here at home."

I like the pragmatic suggestions:

"If Kofi Annan, who was in charge when U.N. peacekeepers committed sex crimes and Oil-for-Food dwarfed Enron’s mess, really believes the U.S. acted illegally in Iraq, then he should petition to remove the U.N. headquarters to a more legal and civilized place, say Paris or the Hague. The U.S. should offer our genuine regrets while shrugging that we are not quite up to the moral fiber of the General Assembly or its Commission of Human Rights, thus encouraging such a relocation."

I will pay to see that happen. Perhaps we can buy the UN HQ at market price and give the UN a grant to build a new HQ. Anywhere else but the Western hemisphere.

"Two questions: What was your reaction to the Supreme Court decision on this topic, and what do you think about legislation to, in the minds of opponents at least, remedy or changing it?"

"Ms. Pelosi. As a Member of Congress, and actually all of us and anyone who holds a public office in our country, we take an oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Very central to that in that Constitution is the separation of powers. I believe that whatever you think about a particular decision of the Supreme Court, and I certainly have been in disagreement with them on many occasions, it is not appropriate for the Congress to say we're going to withhold funds for the Court because we don't like a decision."

"Q Not on the Court, withhold funds from the eminent domain purchases that wouldn't involve public use. I apologize if I framed the question poorly. It wouldn't be withholding federal funds from the Court, but withhold Federal funds from eminent domain type purchases that are not just involved in public good."

"Ms. Pelosi. Again, without focusing on the actual decision, just to say that when you withhold funds from enforcing a decision of the Supreme Court you are, in fact, nullifying a decision of the Supreme Court. This is in violation of the respect for separation of church -- powers in our Constitution, church and state as well. Sometimes the Republicans have a problem with that as well. But forgive my digression."

"So the answer to your question is, I would oppose any legislation that says we would withhold funds for the enforcement of any decision of the Supreme Court no matter how opposed I am to that decision. And I'm not saying that I'm opposed to this decision, I'm just saying in general."

This woman is a congressional leader, unable to grasp a simple concept.

"when you withhold funds from enforcing a decision of the Supreme Court you are, in fact, nullifying a decision of the Supreme Court." There IS NOT enforement of the decision in the first place. The proposal is to not fund projects that take away other people's property to give it to another private owner. In other words, for example, the Federal government will not fund a project that will take away Aunt Jane's house to build a parking lot for a shopping mall.

Welcome to Rightwingsparkle! The Pro-life movement brought me back into politics. Now I am a conservative activist. Mother Teresa once said: "Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person." Person to person. Me to you. Together we can change the world.